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Defense Dominates Spring Scrimmage

Corvallis, Ore. - Oregon State's defense dominated the final scrimmage of the spring session Friday at the Tommy Prothro Football Complex, limiting the Beaver offense to 113 gross yards in the 35-play scrimmage. The defense registered numerous sacks.

'We do a lot of blitzing; we basically throw the kitchen sink at our offense,' Beaver head coach Mike Riley said. 'Our offense has to learn on the fly, but that's one way we learn about protection -- our line sees a lot of stuff. You can't duplicate what we do on the practice field, so it's really good for both sides of the ball.'

The offense never did threaten to score in the scrimmage. Quarterback Matt Moore completed six of nine passes for 57 yards and was intercepted by safety Lamar Herron in the end zone. Several passes by the Beaver quarterbacks were deflected.

'The corners looked aggressive today,' Riley said. 'We have to be careful because we led the world in holding penalties in our secondary last year, but we want to be aggressive.'

Oregon State returns to the practice field Monday for the final week of the spring session. The Beavers will also practice Wednesday, before the annual spring game Sat., April 30 at 1 p.m. at PGE Park in Portland.

A. 'I saw some confidence today, but probably the main thing is he knew were to go with the football - particularly early he knew when to get the ball out of his hands and make it look sharp and efficient.'

Q. What about the play of the offensive line?

A. 'I think when we get started the first unit does a pretty good job. We are very, very thin on the offensive line this spring, we don't even have two full groups. The defensive line is rotating three different groups in, so our offensive guys wear down. The mental part of fighting through fatigue is good for our line, but at the same time it is hard physically for them when you have a fresh wave of players on the other side of the ball.'

Q. Will you be able to play any kind of a full spring game?

A. 'I'm working on that right now. It will have to be some simulation of a real game.'